How to disable the theme on Xiaomi POCO X3: the complete guide

Changing the visuals on POCO smartphones is a popular way to personalize the device to your liking, but not all experiments are successful. Often users are faced with a situation when the installed graphics shell is poorly read, contains advertising elements or simply ceases to like after a couple of days of use. Owners of the POCO X3 NFC model and its more powerful version of the Pro are especially often wondering how quickly to return to factory design, since the MIUI system has its own navigation features.

The process of returning to the standard look does not require root rights or complex technical manipulations. All the functionality for managing the appearance is built directly into the system application "Themes", which is preinstalled on each device. Below we will discuss in detail several ways to disable the theme, reset the settings of fonts and icons, and solve possible problems with the interface freeze after a failed installation.

It's worth noting that sometimes the problem isn't the topic itself, but the conflicting versions of the system's components. If you upgrade to a new version of MIUI, the old graphics packages may not work properly, so a simple hay design on a standard one often solves the problem with lags or artifacts on the screen.

Use the “Themes” application to return the standard

The most obvious and safe method is to use the MIUI toolkit. Themes (or Themes in the international version) is the central node for managing the visual style of your POCO X3. This is where the download history and activated profiles are stored. To get started, you need to find the appropriate icon on your desktop or in the Tools folder and run it.

When you start the app, look at the bottom navigation bar, and you're interested in the far right tab, which is usually marked by a person's icon or called a Profile, and you go to this section and you can manage all the components, from general themes to specific fonts and ringtones, and you can see a list of all the designs you've ever downloaded.

In the list of My themes, you will see the current active design, which will be marked with the corresponding status. Next to the title or under the preview of the topic should be the button or menu item "Apply" (if the topic is not active) or, more importantly in our case, the "Delete" button or the selection of a standard theme. If you want to just switch, find a theme in the list called "Classic", "Standard" or "No theme" - this is the factory option.

• 🎨 Open the Topics app and go to the Profile section in the lower right corner of the screen.
• 📂 Select My Themes to see a list of all installed shells.
• 🔄 Find the Classic theme and click Apply for instant return to the drain.
• 🗑️ To completely remove a third-party theme, click on it, select the basket icon and confirm the action.

⚠️ Note: When you remove a paid theme through the standard menu, it will disappear from the list of re-useable ones without re-purchasing unless it was saved to a backup.

It is important to distinguish between “delete” and “disable.” Disabling simply changes the active profile, leaving the theme files in the phone’s memory. Deletion completely erases third-party data, freeing up space in the internal drive. For the POCO X3 with its large firmware files, it is recommended to delete unused heavy themes.

Reset theme settings through the system menu

Sometimes the Themes app doesn't work properly or the system interface freezes to keep you from switching properly, and deep system settings come to the rescue. The MIUI shell on the POCO X3 Pro has a hidden or less visible visual reset mechanism that doesn't affect the user's personal data.

To access these settings, go to the main Settings menu of your smartphone, then you will need to find the section responsible for the appearance. Depending on the version of MIUI (12, 12.5, 13 or 14), the path may be slightly different, but the logic remains the same. Usually this is the item “Always on screen and Wallpaper” or simply “Wallpaper”.

Inside this menu, there's often a "Theme" item that duplicates the functions of the main application, but works at a lower level. If the system allows, you can force a standard set of icons and fonts to be selected here, and you can also reset all the design settings to factory values, which is useful for software failures.

If standard methods don’t work, you can try to clean the Topic app itself. This won’t delete your downloaded themes, but it will reset your cache and current application settings. To do this, go to Settings → Apps → All Apps, find themes in the list, and select Clear → Clear Everything.

• 🛠️ Go to the phone’s Settings and find the Wallpaper and Personalization section».
• 📱 Select the item "Theme" and try to apply the system version of the design from the proposed list.
• 🧹 If the interface doesn’t respond, go to the application settings, find “Themes” and clear their data.

Cleaning up the app’s data is a secure procedure that often resolves issues with “broken” themes when icons turn into white squares or text becomes unreadable.After this operation, the phone may require a reboot to apply the changes.

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Before resetting the theme settings, take a screenshot of the desktop to quickly restore the location of the widgets, as some themes change the grid of icons.

Removing Third-Party Themes and Working with Access Rights

POCO X3 users often install modified themes from third-party sources because they offer functionality not available in the official store. However, such themes may contain errors in the code or conflict with MIUI security updates. If the phone starts to behave strangely after installing such a theme, it must be removed.

The process of removing third-party themes is similar to removing official themes, but there is a nuance: some advanced themes require additional permissions or install plugins. If you installed any additional modules along with the theme, they also need to be found in the list of applications and removed. They usually have titles similar to the theme name, or are marked as "Plugin".

In the rare cases where a theme is embedded deep into the system (which requires an unlocked bootloader and root rights), a routine deletion may not help. In this situation, the theme files may remain in the system folders. To delete them, you will need a file manager with access to the root of the system, for example, Root Explorer or MT Manager, but this is the level of an advanced user.

If you've used tools like Substratum to overlay themes, just uninstall the theme is not enough, you need to run an overlay app and press the "Remove all overlays" or similar button to remove all modifications from the system layers, and then you have to reboot the device.

Solving interface freeze problems after changing the topic

The POCO X3 NFC has a Snapdragon 732G processor and the Pro version has 860, which provides high performance. However, the MIUI shell can sometimes stumble on the heavy graphics of unoptimized topics. Symptoms can be different: it lays down the desktop, the notification curtain does not open or the sound disappears.

The first step for these symptoms is to force the reset. 10-15 seconds until the device vibrates and the logo appears POCO. This resets the temporary errors in RAM, and if the problem persists after the reboot, we move on to more radical measures.

Try running your phone in Safe Mode. This will determine if the theme or another third-party app is to blame. To enter Safe Mode on MIUI, you usually need to press the off button on the lock screen (you will be prompted to go to Safe Mode) or use a combination of volume buttons when booting (depends on the Android version).

• 🔄 Perform a forced reboot by holding the power button for more than 10 seconds.
• 🛡️ Run the device in Safe Mode to check the system without third-party modifications.
• 📉 Reduce animation in Developer Mode if the lags are associated with heavy theme graphics.

⚠️ Warning: If the phone is running perfectly in safe mode, it means the problem is guaranteed in the software or theme installed.

It's also worth checking if memory is crowded. Heavy themes with lots of high-quality images can take up a significant amount of cache space. Clearing the cache through storage settings can improve interface responsiveness.

Resetting all personalization settings to factory

If none of the above methods helped to return the usual look on the POCO X3, the option remains a complete reset personalization settings, which will return all system parameters related to appearance, sound and vibration to the state of “out of the box”.

To do this, go to Settings → About your phone. Find “Settings Reset” (sometimes it’s in the Advanced Settings sub-menu or just in the general system settings list). Select the “Reset Settings” option. Please note: don’t confuse it with “Erase all data”!

The system will alert you that you will reset your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, alarm clocks, and design (themes, fonts, wallpaper). Confirm the action. The phone can reboot. Once turned on, you will get a clean system with a factory theme, but with all its data.

This method is especially effective when the user has changed a lot of options in the Developer Menu or used hidden engineering menu commands to change the interface, and now can not remember what exactly was changed.

After this procedure, it is recommended to reconfigure the fingerprint and face, as the biometric parameters may also be affected by resetting the security settings.

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Reset Settings is a safe way to return the factory view to the system without losing photos and contacts, as opposed to a full reset (Wipe Data).

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)